I'm in training for New Year's Eve... or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it. The last several nights have been *very* late ones. In reality, I've been spending time having found something interesting to read on the web, which leads to something else... which in turn leads to something else... etc. Last night it was Neil Gaiman's blog... er ... Journal (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/), which led me to Amanda Palmer's ukulele song about Lady GaGa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dxDREaCyjE&feature=player_embedded), which led me to revisit Molly Lewis' cover of Lady GaGa's Poker Face (http://www.youtube.com/user/sweetafton23#p/u/1/5mf7cQfhJSA).... which led me to send an e-mail off to a younger relative that will probable puzzle her greatly... but whatever.

I've also spent many, many hours lately on Robin McKinley's blog and related forum (http://robinmckinleysblog.com/), so adding Neil's Journal to the mix creates a nice sort of symmetry (American fantasy writer living in England wrt British fantasy writer living in the US).

But back on topic, we're got plans for Thursday night, a masquerade at a local Pizzaria. This will entail staying up late and walking home in the wee hours. I tend to wake up early (six-ish is late for me), regardless of when I get to bed. This means that the last several times I was up past midnight, I came down sick with a sore throat from not getting enough rest. This morning, after getting to bed past two, I slept in until nine... which while it is not the 8-9 hours of sleep that I need, should at least be enough to keep this cough that I've been wrestling with this past week from getting worse. Hence, the justification to staying up far too late reading... it's training for tomorrow.

As for getting back into the habit of getting up at 4:30 or 5:00, so that I can go in to teach mathematics this upcoming week.... well, I'll worrry about that on Saturday.

Best Solstice Wishes to the world. It is getting lighter, so I'm assuming that the sun is coming up, despite our failing at staying up all night to keep a fire going. ;-) There is not evidence of the sprinkling of snow that was predicted as a chance occurrence, so you can't prove it one way or the other by me. The Girl, however, appears to be running fine chances of a white Xmas over in Glasgow, however.

We did have a fire in the fireplace, until about 10:00 p.m., and we stayed up until around 11:00, when I was too wiped out to get anything further done in any productive fashion. The Boy and I have wrapped most of the gifts, and I've printed a few more cards & notes. I have three more packages that stand a good chance of getting into the mail today; good thing nothing is critical to arrive before Thursday. (I'm major behind now because the printer FAILED on me last week; amazingly enough up until that point, I was actually going to get everything out on time for once!). The Boy and I also made it out to get a tree, which is still sitting in the car at this moment. (Oh. Good thought. If I'm going to make a run out for a last minute acquisition for the Darling Husband, I probably want to do something about removing the tree first....) DH is still skeptical that we'll be able to pull a tree off, but it is in work. I'm still hoping to clear several 'piles' from various points in the living room, as well, as part of the process. (This *may* be just an example of Hope Springs Eternal, however. But it's on the list.)

Of course, staying up as late as I did has significantly impacted the recovery that I had been making from an early incident of too little sleep earlier in the week. I tend to lose my voice, and had successfully backed off from that precipice up until yesterday. We'll see what today and tomorrow bring; I'm back to breathing my essential oils and drinking my herb teas with my fingers crossed (which is a good way to spill your tea). Tonight is dinner & Zoolights with friends, which means another late-ish night, although not nearly as late as last night. Tomorrow, I'll sleep in, for sure... at least to the extend that the Yar cat lets me. Maybe if I put the catfood out the night before.... ;-)

Brrrr.... it's cold. Dinner's quick and getting hot in the oven. I must admit, feeding two less complicated than feeding four. We only have the two of our tastes to accommodate, which makes life simpler. Meals get to be lighter as well. There's been quite a few evenings when D. would finish off some leftovers, and I'd have steamed veggies with a bit of cream cheese. Yum. Can't do that when you're responsible for feeding kids. Then we need a proper main meal, with veggies and a starch.

So tonight, we're trying something new. We picked up some turkey Italian sausage, and browned that up with green peppers, onion, and celery in some olive oil. The green pepper was actually a mistake, as this is ultimately going to be stuffed into green peppers, but what the heck. Once that was cooked, we stirred in some crushed tomato and a small can of muchrooms (stems and pieces). Much to my surprise, the sausage seasoning was enough, so we didn't add any other spices. D. layered his stuffed pepper with rice and filling, and then topped it off with a slice of cheese. I layered mine with stuffing and cheese, and put it in a small casserole with more of the vegetable mixture around the base. Yummm...

Drat that cat! Yar very proudly came in and presented D. with his prize yesterday morning: an adolescent stellar jay. There was no evidence of blood or punctures, but when taken back outside, the bird couldn't or wouldn't fly. You can see how it's holding its left wing in the pic. Talk about a literal 'sitting' duck. Leaving it outside in the yard was obviously *not* an answer.

So we popped it into the cardboard animal carrier, D. came up with a clever perch and we provided water, apple, peanuts (shelled), sunflower seeds, quiet and dark in the east bed room with the rabbit.

I guess that's the good thing about feeding the birds: the peanuts and sunflower seeds were a hit, while the other things didn't appear to be touched. We tried again this a.m., to see if it could fly, but while it could certainly run (and did, leading D. on quite a chase to get it back into the carrier), unfortunately there was no flying. D. called PAWs up in Lynnwood, and confirmed that they would take jays, and off he went this a.m. So we are now birdless in Seattle, and the cats are still prowling outside of the rabbit cage, wondering what we did with their prize.

Oh my. You can even see the surface of the old mattress on out bed upstairs. ;-) Between a living room that is 1/2 useable and clearing the piles of stuff upstairs, we may actually have a livable house sometime in the spring time.... well, a girl can always dream, right? ;-)

Whooo hee! the fire place is clean! and I don't just mean that we've picked up, vacuumed and dusted, although we have done that as well. I've even cleaned off the mantle and polished the wood.

*AS* we were doing the vacuuming, (and I seriously mean *AS*; D was running the machine and I was answering the phone) the phone rang with an offer of $20 off a fire place sweep and inspection. This has been on my To Do list for about the last seven years, and we jumped on it. How often do the stars line up like this?

So, within a couple of hours, the sweeps were at our door. Yes, they really do use the same style brooms as Dick Van Dyke hoisted around in Mary Poppins, but they 'vacuum' as much as they sweep these days. No, they didn't have any undersized boy that they shoved up the flue either. I checked.

We filled their ash can (which is where the vacuum mechanism deposits what ever it sweeps up). We clogged their hose several times. I did mention that I didn't know when it had been cleaned last, but the fellow assured me that since 1978, in order to sell a house, the fireplace has to be cleaned and inspected. So it's probably only been the twenty years that we've been here that it hasn't been cleaned, and not the the 50-plus (or 70-plus!) years that I was afraid of. Whew.

Huzzah! and it's a nice rainy night, just right for a fire. But I'll probably wait. There's still the upstairs bedroom to tackle, and that needs done by Sunday morning.

Done with the Vancouver pics and sooner than I expected. Of course, the time I've spent on this probably should have been spent making sure that we all have a place to sleep this weekend, when the Boy arrives home from school, but it still feels good to take this off my To Do list.

I am FINALLY am getting a start on uploading the last of the Vancouver BC pics. We spend an afternoon in the VanDusen Gardens while we were up for Bard on the Beach this past August, where they had an amazing display of Zimbabewean sculpture in their southwest gardens. I've got tons of pictures of the sculptures and their surroundings that I'm uploading even as we speak. (or since we were in Canada, perhaps that is 'tonnes'....)

Anyway it was beautiful stuff, and in more affluent times, I would have loved to have taken a piece home.

It will probably take a couple of days to get everything from the Gardens uploaded. Stay tuned

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainycity1/

It's gotten blustery, with a wind storm coming through. The kittehs seem more doubtful of this than of the rain, even. "Go on out", says I, pushing them out the door. They haven't come back in yet, so I guess they've decided that it's O.K.

...well, maybe it *is* raining, at least a little bit. Cats keep coming in and saying, "Pick us up!", and then I find out that they're wet...

Huzzah! There was a scheduling glitch, and my job did not materialize. Good thing, too, as it took me another 7 hours to finish my homework. I'm not sure what I would have wound up with, if I'd only had the 2 hours I was planning on.

So that class is done. Today's been pretty productive, although not of the sort that you can easily see. I need to hit the house stuff hard starting tomorrow, so that the Boy has a place to sleep when he comes home for the holiday next week. Time to take some before pics, I think. ;-)

After a huge push yesterday (thank heavens for federal holidays!), I've finished my second-to-last assignment for this current "fire hose" of a class, and I've got a pretty good start on the final piece that is due tomorrow. At the start of class. Printed out. With a short essay for a cover letter.

This means that I'm not out of the woods yet, but need to keep focused and wrap everything up. In theory, I have a subbing job again tomorrow, which means that I won't be able to pull the 12-hrs straight effort that I put into the previous piece. I also have to get at least a reasonable amount of sleep, because fourth graders will eat you alive if they think that they can.

So, it's off to the showers now, to clear my head, and then a hard push until bedtime. Fortunately, school lets out an hour early tomorrow, so that will help, but only if there's a minimum yet to be done.... like maybe spell-checking and printing. Fun, fun. But then IT'S OVER! and I can start figuring out where the Boy is going to sleep when he comes home in two weekends for the holiday.

We're in a lull in the weather, but by the sounds of both the weather blogs and miscellaneous facebook posts by friends around the area, we've got something moving up towards us from the south, even as I type. It's been very interesting to watch the kittehs during this last bout of wind and rain. I've mentioned before that, unlike any of my previous cats, these cats *do* play the game of What's the Weather Like Outside of THIS Door, and they will go from room to room looking for the door that leads to the weather that isn't all wet and stormy. The Yar cat appears to have taken this game to a new level, however. Dissatisfied with the results provided by the regular doors, he is now meowing to have the *closet* doors opened for him to check. Go figure.

Happy Hallow'en!

One advantage of not having kids in the house is that when dinner turns out to be frozen waffles covered with jam at 10 o'clock at night, you don't have to feel guilty.

I spent yesterday transitioning Ms. C's class to the long-term sub, and I haven't heard anything from either today, so hopefully no news is good news...

And of course, instead of taking today off as planned I subbed for Mr. N at AHS instead. They're a good bunch of kids, and it was fun dusting off my old calculus knowledge, so it was a good day, but I am tired. The vintage theater in our neighbor is showing the latest Harry Potter, but the run ends tonight, and I'm waffling between going out to see it and just wrapping things up and heading off to bed. Sad as it is, I suspect a bubble bath and then hitting the hay will win. Where's my spirit of adventure? But it has been a long 3 weeks with lots of short nights, so curling up with a cat and a book sounds awful appealing right now.

Yesterday was a long day of class. I'd stayed up past 11:00 again working to get the last bits of homework done, and got up at 6:00 to finish it off. As of yesterday evening I was *finally* caught up with all my MIT homework. Hooray. I even got some sleep last night.

The challenge now, of course, is to get a jump on this week's homework now, so that I'm done early this time. Which I'm off to do now. More later. There is some indication that the ongoing substitute situation may be resolved during this week as well, which will help to some degree.

Meanwhile, D. got our pumpkin carved and out on the stoop last night. Here is an initial pic, and I may have a chance to post more later.

Still scrambling to catch up with all the homework in the newest MIT class (LA for K to 2nd grade); still in every day subbing for Ms. C.....

As promised below, here are some pics of the Halloween decorations...

Man, oh, man, for as busy as I was this past week, you'd think there'd be more to write about, but no. Ms. C. continued to not be able to come in, so each evening was filled with either e-mailing with her to answer questions she had or to try to get homework done. As it was, it was a last-minute scramble anyway to finish the homework, and when I walked into class, one of my teammates asked about my reflection. OMG! I totally forgot about that! So I've got a 3-5 page reflection that I'm working to finish up today. Couldn't do it yesterday; our latest class started then, and it is INTENSE. I think we learned more in yesterday's class than we have in the entirety of some of our other (more recent theory) classes. And there's home work due for that one, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, and we have reading to finish for Friday. Like I said, it's intense.

Meanwhile the darling husband has done a great job with the Halloween decorations this year. Everything's a lot like previous years, but he's put it together in a pleasing way this time. Either that, or I'm ready for holiday lights to perk up the drizzly fall nights we're having now. I'll try to post pics later.

It was a tough call last night. I'd agreed to keep myself available in case Ms. C was still unable to make it back to her classroom and needed me to come again. But then I was notified by the sub system that a math job for another friend at AHS was available today for half a day. I went ahead and accepted the math job, and started trying to contact Ms. C to see what she thought the chance of needing me was... to no avail. I hadn't brought home her phone number and couldn't reach her by e-mail. It was finally getting towards 8:00, and I decided that I couldn't risk reneging on my agreement... so I canceled out of the math job while there was still time for the system to notify some one else that evening.

So glad I did. This morning at 6:00 I got another call from the sub system; Ms. C did wind up needing me, for both today and tomorrow. Whew.

I'm missing the monthly presentation at the National Space Society. It was a discussion by MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle, speaking about Pluto, and his new book The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference. I would have liked to have gone, but a migraine hit. It's been threatening since last Thursday (I originally thought that it was going to materialize while I was subbing for last week's 4th grade class, but I was able to forstall it... apparently only for a little while, though).

The good news was that it was a lovely (although rather cold) day today, so I got ambitious early and got outside to whack back the jungle that used to be the walkway on the south of the house. I've made more progress, although I'm impeded by the fact that I'm trying to use the blackberry canes to feed the rabbit, and she only eats so much each day. Or, rather, I only *let* her eat so much each day. But I was able to fill another yard waste bin and had come inside to get the shopping list in order, when the migraine became evident.

So D. did the shopping after he ran, and I scavenged some crackers and cheese and ate that with my midrin pills. D. also brought back some ground beef for me (we don't keep red meat in the house any more, since the kids are gone and D. can't eat it) and I had a patty with mustard. Between the headache meds and the protein, I'm not in bad shape, but not good enough to go out. I'll finish this off and head to bed.

It was an interesting week. I was in for the same teacher every day, Tuesday through Thursday. She had been out since late September, which is a long time for a class to have a series of substitutes. They were a really good class, all in all. I'm a little surprised that they weren't able to get one of the previous teachers to repeat, although one other (fellow?) appeared to have come in twice(?).

Knowing that I was returning the next day made things easier in some ways and harder in others. I was there an extra 2 hours each afternoon (except the last) setting up the lesson plan for the next day. The extra hours made it harder; having a lesson plan that I was familar with each morning made it easier. By the end, I felt like I was within one day of having the schedule down pat and not feeling so rushed. On the last day, I actually had about 20 minutes during lunch where I could sit and work on my 'real life' schedule, instead of scrambling to get things ready for the next period the entire day.

So, having 10 hours each day dedicated to doing the substitute-thing meant I was working hard on my lesson plan for my graduate class late into the evening several times. I still have some chasing to do, but I'm in pretty good shape right now. Good thing, because I need to scramble to get the reading and other assignments done for tomorrow's class.

The other interesting thing for this week: with the nights getting colder we're finding the Yar cat and the Cat with A Thousand Names curled up on the foot of the bed more often. It's nice but it means that we get pushed towards the edges of the bed. These are big cats, and they want to take their half out of the middle. Fortunately, they're both good for a snuggle and a purr. I think we'll keep them.

Just a quick note, because I've got to dash again this morning. I've been going into the same class all this week for a teacher who's been out since late September. I'm rather amazed that they didn't find someone who would agree to come in on a reoccurring basis before it finally got around to me. The kids are some of the better dispositioned fourth graders that I've worked with and it's been an interesting time. In theory, today will be the last day she needs to be out. I've learned a lot and it's been good practice.

Progress continues to be made on the sidewalk on the south side of the house. Last night, I almost reached our side door and we filled up the yardwaste bin once more, for the third time in as many weeks. I'm pretty sure that I could walk on this sidewalk earlier this spring and even into the summer. It amazes me how quickly everything grew up. I'm thoroughly fed up by the branches that the cotoneasters have thrown out after all my pruning earlier in the year so I've lost my patience with them and they are being turned into small trees. At least they're tall enough now to arborize, and they help hold up/back the rose brambles and the blackberry canes.

And why, oh why, did I want to grow so many things that have thorns? I'll admit, the hawthornes are not my favorite, although their mayflowers are pretty in the spring. Since I don't seem to be able to discourage them completely, they're being arborized unmercifully along with the cotoneasters.

I'm ready to tame the blackberry brambles as well. While I really want to keep them for their fruit, I'm drawing the line at the canes that are migrating across the walk into the neighbor's yard. Cutting them back goes slowly however. I cut enough to feed the rabbit and the rest have been left to provide her with dinner throughout the rest of this week. Hopefully by this next Sunday, she will have eaten enough to let me clear that part of the walkway. The brambles are actually still bearing fruit, some of which is not yet ripe even, so I've actually had a few berries this year after all and might even get a few more before the growing season is over.

As a benefit of this recent activity, I did manage to reach one of my rose brambles and actually got three flowers off of it. I've put them out into the front room by my computer where I can enjoy them. They are lovely and smell wonderful. Hopefully the kittehs will not knock them over during one of their prowls. That could be very bad for the piano. I need to go get more blackberry leaves for the rabbit's dinner; I'll check for more blooms then.

The weather continues cold and drizzly. Yar has spent the past two days curled up on the futon in the front room, on top of the laundry that I keep saying that I'll put away TODAY. He starts moving again right around dusk and then spends his nights outside in the wild, silly cat. It's wet and cold and rainy, and it's bad enough in the daylight.

The Cat With a Thousand Names, he's a different story. He's just come in from his morning jaunt, and has occupied my lap to warm up. He purrs quite a bit these days, probably realizing that he gets held longer when he does.

Jazz Cat remains our little Wild Thing. Based on our last few walks around the neighborhood, I think I've figured out which one is her "other" house. It is my theory that she is hoodwinking the couple a few houses up into believing she lives there. At the very least, I think she spends a fair amount of time in their yard.

With the weather the way that it is, I keep expecting to wake up to find the bed invaded by round fur bodies, but it hasn't happened yet.

So it looks like if you want ice cream while you're at my house, you'll either have to warn me ahead of time or bring your own. D. can't eat much dairy these days, and my main use for it is the scoop of vanilla that I put into my cocoa-fied coffee each morning. When Breyers was sticking to their promise of cream, vanilla and sugar as their sole ingredients, I always had a carton in the freezer. Once they started to slip tara gum into the mix, I started looking for an alternative (much to the kids' dismay). With said kids now out of the house at least until next summer, I switched to whipping cream. A tablespoon puts back the fat that my non-fat cocoa mix is missing with fewer calories than the aforementioned ice cream. But earlier this week, I discovered that my newest carton was one day past its buy date. What to do? I didn't want to pitch it, it wasn't going to last more than another day longer, and I really didn't have the time or interest or ice & rock salt required to pull out the ice cream maker.

Ah ha! I have a solution. A year or so ago, I bought a gazogene* to make whipped cream. I 'whipped' up my whipping cream and squirted it into two quart boxes, and popped them into the freezer. It's definitely not 'ice cream' by any means, but it serves my purpose. One box, I swirled with chocolate syrup to make a sort of fudge ripple, but the other I left plain.

What, no sugar, you're asking? Absolutely. We found years ago with salt that we tend to use less if we sprinkle it *on* the food instead of mixing it in. Less is needed because the salt that is there hits the taste buds, rather than being 'hidden' inside the other foods. Turns out that sugar works in a very similar way. There is enough 'sweet' taste in the cinnamon sugar that I sprinkle on the ice cream floating on the cocoa/coffee that I'm good.

Why use the ice cream or the whipping cream at all? Originally when I skipped my daily latte, I found that my feet would start cramping. I assumed it was the calcium, so when I started making my coffees at home, I made up a dried milk/cocoa/cinnamon/vanilla mix to add to it to make kind of a non-sugary mocha. Unfortunately my feet cramps started reoccurring, and adding more mix (i.e., more calcium) didn't fix the problem. It appears to be a low-fat issue. I don't eat a lot of fats normally during the course of the day, so I've resorted to the ice cream (now whipped cream) as a means of putting the milk fat *back* into my non-fat cocoa. So far, this seems to have solved the problem.

* a devise using compressed CO2 to aerate fluids, similar to a seltzer bottle.

Our rabbit Lucy is back home now, after having major surgery to have a tumor removed. We had left her with our rabbit expert in July while we were traveling and all of a sudden what had been a fairly robust rabbit came down with all sorts of health problems. When packing her up to take her to BunnyBytes(.com), we discovered a very large tumor on her tummy. Immediately after the move to her temporary home, she developed a head tilt and started favoring her left paw. Turns out that she had a very persistent ear infection, and somewhere along the line, she developed a palsy where she shakes until she falls over, at which point she pretty much returns to normal. Once Jen finally got the ear infection under control, we had the tumor removed. Her staples came out yesterday, and we brought her back home last evening, two months after this all started.

We almost left Lucy with Jen, and Pica home instead. Pica was one of the rabbit litter born at BunnyBytes(.com) the spring before the TigerGirl went over to Japan , so he's almost four years old now. He's a small rabbit with little tiny ears, and bunnies his size can live almost as long as cats. D & I decided that we'd rather stick with our current rabbit, gimpy as she is now, rather than committing to another 7-8 years of having hay all over the house.

Lucy's wobbly and deaf, with apparently continuing ear infections. I'm supposed to squirt stuff into her ears twice a day which makes her shake her head which makes her fall over again. Hopefully this is progress. She can't romp outside at this point (and may not ever be able to go out again), which means that we need to pull all the cords in the living room up out of the way so that she can romp inside instead. We need to be doing that anyway at this time of year, as it is getting too cold and wet to let her outside now. We'll see how all this goes.

At last! This past Friday was the last multicultural education class. Huzzah! Yesterday we started on a Classroom Instruction, Management and Assessment class that looks like it will be much less sitting around talking and much more doing and learning. I am relaxing and enjoying class again.

I still have a paper due this coming week for the Multicultural class, and I'll have to push myself to overcome my persistent resistance to the subject and get the assignment done. In theory, we need each other's Lesson Plans, and I've only got mine and one other at this point. But regardless, I'll have to write the paper with or without the other material, so that's not a very good excuse for putting it off.

So today, instead of homework, I put the chore lists together into some form that might result in my actually starting to do the chores again, and that took far more time than I really should have spent on it. Towards the end of the day, D. & I went out to tackle the jungle on the south side of the house. We've cleared another six feet or so. With any luck, we'll actually break a pathway through to the side door so that I can get to my old fashioned roses before the blooming season stops. Right now I can see them outside of the windows and they look lovely. Progress is being made. We keep uncovering 'nests' of flattened grass, and I continue to wonder if the kittehs appreciate our uncovering their hidey-holes.

So I'll make up for skipping so many days by posting twice today, I guess. I got to substitute for a first grade class today. Man o man, there is nothing like a bunch of 6 year olds who are just going into their third week of class. We definitely had problems listening, and it was a noisy afternoon after lunch, but they were fun, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

And as expected, it's nice to be back in the classroom, and remembering just why I'm slogging through all these social-sciency studies on how kids learn and how their background impacts them in class and whatnot. It's also nice to start seeing how teachers set things up in their classrooms. I'm makiing notes on both what I want to do AND what I want to do differently. All in all, it was a good day.

Man, I'm slipping. Between the Differentiated Instruction classwork and stuff starting up at AHS, seems like I'm always scrambling to catch up. Got a start on our Remote Sensing work for the AHS Science Olympiad team, studying maps, and I've had my first mentor meeting. Looks like I'll be helping with a lot of college applications this fall. ;-) Which is good.

The good news is that for our CIMA II (Classroom Instruction, Management and Assessment, I think) class which starts on Saturday, we just have to make sure we've reviewed some of the things we went over in CIMA I. When I originally found out on Monday that we had to read 4 chapters by Saturday ON TOP of this thing we're doing for DI, I was not a happy camper. But happily, they're chapters we've already gone over. I do need to e-mail a couple of teacher-friends for example formative assessments, though (yes, a huge part of this is a new vocabulary of buzz words)

So now all I have to do for Friday's DI class is: 1)finish the lesson plan; 2) find the attachments I want to include; 2) pull together the presentation slides; 4) read the three technical papers for discussion. Non-trivial. Blah.

We finally got a start on pruning back that jungle that now makes up the south side of our house. It's hard to believe that earlier in the year, you could actually walk between the house and the property line. I've got a lovely batch of blackberries growing there this year that I can't really get to, and I haven't been able to bring in any of the roses from the bush by the side door either. The blackberries are a new phenomena, but I really miss the roses. They've got a lovely scent.

So we went out with the yard waste barrel and pretty much filled it, without getting much more than three feet into the overgrowth. But at least that's three feet more than was accessible yesterday.

While we were pruning, we uncovered that nest that Jazz sleeps in during the day. D. says that she's got another one out back by the bamboo. I can't help but wonder if she'll move and start sleeping further down the walkway, now that we've 'daylighted' her current hidey-hole.

It's a lovely evening, warm and clear, and it's supposed to turn rainy again tonight. I wanted to take advantage of it, so D & I tried taking a walk down through the park to the beach... except the furries took it into their little fur heads that they wanted to come with us. We headed off into the west to go down the hill, but once the cats crossed the street to come along, we decided we'd better not risk them following further and backtracked to the front of our house. Then we started walking south up our block (the wrong direction from the beach, but at least there were no streets to cross). The kittehs galloped along after us, playing tag on the various front yards. Midway up the block, we turned back again as I was getting nervous about them 1) following us up to the end of the block and 2) not being bright enough to continue following us home if we looped back down the back alley. When we got back down to our yard, Yar cat was still bouncing, but the Cat with a Thousand Names was starting to look pretty tuckered.

So D & I headed out once more, but east this time, along the other side of the house and in completely the wrong direction from the beach. The Yar cat followed us around the first corner, but plopped down beside the garden gate. The Cat with a Thousand Names wasn't to be seen. We got a bit of a walk, but never made it to the beach. We continued to walk up the street over from ours and on the far block as we were heading west back towards our street, we had a nice chat with a neighbor we haven't seen for a while. The sun was starting to set once we'd done, so we figured we'd gotten as much of a walk as we were going to, and headed home.

I'd consider this a potential way to exercise the Cat with a Thousand Names, but the first thing he did when he saw we were home was to head to his food dish. The Yar cat is still guarding the front steps, even though he knows we are back.

Ooh, it's a foggy September morning today. I love living in a maritime climate.

Finally finished re-reading the Harry Potter series. I was watching the first movie on the way back from Scotland, and that got me started. We picked up copies of the British version that we were missing while we were up in Vancouver. Now that that's done, I might finally be able to get something productive done.... presuming that I don't do something foolish, like start the Taran Wanderer series.

I also re-watched the first four movies, up to the Order of the Phoenix, which we now own but I haven't yet seen. The last three books are so dark, though, I'm thinking about waiting until all of the movies are out (yeh, I know, that's about three years from now) before I watch the last four.

Man that was a big spider! About a week ago (some time after the boy had gone back to college for the second time), I glanced across the room and there was a huge spider scurrying from beside the MacBox over towards the stereo. I estimated its leg span to be over 3 inches, easily. I mean, come on, it was big enough that I could see it easily from about 9 feet away. It wasn't one of those grass spiders with the tiny body and the long, spindly legs either. This was a spider that made me very glad it was over there and I was over here. A mental note was made to be very, very careful the next time I needed to go over by the shelves of CDs.

But that was then, and this is now. And just now, I looked down and here's the giganta-spider again, only this time, it's right beside my chair, less than 12 inches away. That will wake you up, in a hurry. AND distract you from the critique that you're supposed to be writing for class, you can bet.

Thanks to a postcard that had been conveniently left on the floor and a custard dish that had been holding tea bags*, the spider is now claiming new territory outside by the lamp post. Hopefully the kitties have enough sense not to go hunting there, but I don't think they sleep in that part of the periwinkle. I'll just have to make sure that I wear gloves and good shoes the next time I'm pruning over there.....

* proving that neatness is highly overrated

Feeling punky; the boy came home a week after having the flu, but I really don't think I caught this from him. I think it's the result of too many nights staying up late reading when I have to get up early the next morning. Too many nights with only five hours of sleep will do this to me. The cats are happy to have someone sleeping in this morning with them, though...

I survived the second of two WEST-E tests this morning. These tests are required to prove that I have enough basic knowledge to teach 3rd graders and the answers that I tend to want give often aren't of the choices. At least for the social studies class I don't run into the 'wait, none of these answers could possibly be correct' like I did with the math. This set off another bout of 'why am I doing this? why aren't I working on a masters in math?'. Social scientists and hard scientists just don't think alike. Hopefully, now that the school year is in swing, I can get back into the classrooms and remember just why I'm putting myself through this.

The boy was home to see friends over the long weekend; he came in while D & I were in Vancouver. (...was he really able to get tickets? ...will he be able to get home from the bus? ....will he really have his key? I need to stop worrying so much - he was fine) He spend most of the time out and about, but we had dinner together and hit Half Price Books the evening before he left again. His absence left a bigger hole this time, probably because we went from 'having him here' to 'not having him here', without the intermediate step of having the drive over and back. The Cat With A Thousand Names is sure chatty now that the boy's gone again. I've spent the morning playing fetch with him and his mouse.

The rest of our trip was nice. We saw a play at Bard on the Beach each evening. Othello (main stage) was *very* well done and I enjoyed it much more than I had expected. We had been delayed going over the Lions Gate bridge and so were late to the performance. They slipped us and another couple in shortly after the play started, so we had seats down in the front left, which was a very different perspective that we normally have.

I enjoyed Comedy of Errors (main stage) less than I had expected. It was set in an exaggerated Elizabethan-time period, with anachronistic asides and music thrown in and it didn't work well for me.

Richard II (Studio Stage) was the first of their upcoming 'history series' and I hadn't seen it before. It was interesting, although the reasoning for Richard II to yield his throne to Henry was not clear. I'll need to read up on the Henry's before we head up next year. Bard is going to meld the two H-IVs into one play for 2010 and the three H-Vs together into one play for 2011, and I'm curious how that is going to work.

Finally, we say Alls Well That Ends Well. (Studio Stage) which was pleasant enough. I've finding it interesting that I'm enjoying the 'serious' plays more and the comedies less these days and wonder if it is a function of 'growing up', or whether it is just that I've seen most of the comedies several times and so the 'dramas' are fresher for me. Of course, the quality of the Bard on the Beach productions is amazing and that may part of it as well.

Beyond the plays we did a mix of standard things and new. We stopped by ABC Books and browsed. They lost one of their cats last fall and so only have the one now. I found out that bookstores actually keep their cats for a reason: otherwise mice will get in and nibble the bindings. We also swung by Stanley Park and looked for black squirrels and went shopped at Indigo Books (I've caught up with my collection of 'British' Harry Potter editions).

Among the 'new' things: we went on some of the Stanley Park trails which is something I've been wanting to do for years and D. suggested we see the VanDusen Botanical Gardens. It's similar to the Butchart Gardens, and is made up of various 'themed' gardens but on a smaller scale. We ran out of time, so didn't get to see all of the different areas, but did make it to the Maze (and found the center!). Pictures will be up on Flickr some time later this week.

(post updated - Monday 7 Sept)
Parking at Stanley Park just wasn't lucky for me yesterday. I went to buy a parking permit (all day, mind you), and came back to find that my electronic lock system had frozen in the 'locked' position.... with the door OPEN. We tried a gazillion things (locking the car, unlocking the car, turning the car on, turning the car off, driving the car...) couldn't get it to unlock. We finally looped my belt around the door handle to give D. something to hold the door shut with, drove around for 15 minutes until we found a gas station, found a Saab place in the yellow pages, drove the 20 minutes to get the Saab place, and of course he was completely booked for days. But he came over to look at it, and presto, it unfroze. I'm definitely going back *there* if ever the need arises again. ;-)

When he poked it, a small plastic piece also fell to the ground. He said that it was just a guide piece and that the lock should be fine without it. Looking at where the similar piece is on the driver's door, I think the piece had partially broken and gotten in the way of the lock releasing. Either the driving or the poking or a combination was enough to let it break completely and fall out of the way.

So with most of the afternoon gone, we went back to the park, found a map at the Information Booth, and went off to explore some of the paths. Ninety minutes later, we come back to my car, and it has a ticket on the windshield. Did I forget to put my all-day parking permit back on the dash? No, turns out that I was in a poorly marked 15-minute parking zone. The very small '15-min parking' sign had been hidden by the van in front of me and the curb wasn't painted or marked in any fashion either. I've got some snaps of the situation and will submit them with an appeal requesting that it be turned into a warning. We'll see. What a day!

Update: we're back home and I've sent my appeal off. With the holiday, I'm hoping that I meet their deadline. What a mess. Of course, now that we're back, I find that their office was actually very convenient to stop by while we were in Vancouver, but I didn't take that opportunity. Rats.

I brought home an heirloom tomato last night from PCC (also know fondly as Politically Correct Consumables). It was chopped up and was stirred into a wonderful vegetable-noodle dish for our dinner. I saved the seeds, and went out onto the internet to see just exactly what I'm supposed to do with them to keep them to plant next year. Amazingly, I found several sites that told me I was supposed to leave them in a pool of water for several days until a moldy scum formed on the top. Apparently this will kill any seed-borne diseases before drying them.
I can *do* that. In fact, I'm really good at letting things sit until they get moldy. Finally, a project that plays to my strengths!

My updates seem so banal next to the boy's (http://somumwillpay.blogspot.com/), but something is better than nothing, I suppose, and nothing is what I've been putting up these past few days. After the rain on Saturday, I went down and joined Mom & ME at the Maritime Festival. We sat in the sun by the water listened to the Revels group singing their sea shanties and folk ballads. All in all it was pleasant. (There are more pics on my Flickr site.) Because I was so late, I missed the boat races, but got to see some of the entrants on the dock. I think this one was my favorite. Apparently it was powered by someone in the wheel, running.

I woke up early this morning to the sounds of the first real rain that we've had in a long time, maybe since May. Finally!
The cats kept going to the back door to be let out, only to stand there looking puzzled and dismayed. Yar finally made a dash for it out of the front door. I think there are more sheltered spots out that way. He's come in and out again since then but now only sits on the porch, watching. The Cat with a Thousand Names hasn't been so brave yet. Jazz is the only one who is unperturbed. She cried at the front door to be let in, but it was only so that she could use the house as a short cut to the back yard. She's disappeared out into the weather again, silly little wild thing.
Of course, this is the day that I'd planned to go down to the Maritime Festival and watch the boat races. Looks like a much better day to stay inside and catch up with all the odds and ends. I'm supposed to meet sister ME down there for a performance of sea shanties in the late afternoon. Hopefully that's got an inside venue. ;-)

Made it over to hear the WS Big Band at Hiawatha last night with D. I really should have been doing homework for today's class instead, but somehow sitting in the sunshine listening to swing music really seemed more appealing than wading through more articles on education theory. But that means I'm in catch-up mode again today. I'm really hoping that this class has some applied aspects as well, otherwise it's going to be a long 5 sessions.

Gave sister B. a call this evening to catch her up on how Mom's surgery went, and we had a nice chat. They've had a string of mishaps this month, and to hear what all's happened, I think she's lucky to have gotten away with just a bump on her car door (from a tree while camping). Her winter plans are up in the air as there are several possible ways that she may wind up going, so we're not sure when we'll see her out this way again. Daughter B has made it to Spain where it is hot. She's been joined by another traveling companion so there are the three of them together for the rest of the trip. I've always heard that three makes for the most difficult number in a group, but I've always liked it best. I found that it lets each of us have some down-time by ourselves while the other two go off on their own way. It's worked out well, but maybe it's just the company that I keep. She'll have several more days in central Spain, then they'll move to the Mediterranean coast and finally on to Italy. Hopefully all the fires will be under control before they make it to Greece.

Just got back from Mom's and her cataract surgery went really well. Now we've all got to start getting used to seeing her without her glasses. She'll go back for eye #2 in three weeks.

Started a new class yesterday and she's warning us up front that it will be heavy in theory. Blah. I got through the last theory class by trying to focus on how the theory related to what I wanted to do in real life, but I got pretty snarky towards the end. Now we have two in a row? That's going to be challenging. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

I really meant to get up a little earlier this morning, but the Cat with a Thousand Names came to curl up beside me for a pet and a purr. Very unusual. Who could resist that?

Whoa! the day's almost gone, and I've goofed off all day again. Time to put the computer down and get some work done!

Flickr Updates continue

Man-oh-man, is that really the time? It's taken all day to get the pics from our drive down to Glasgow sorted out and uploaded. Hope this doesn't take this long tomorrow; these uploads could wind up taking longer than the trip itself!

Amazing how quiet the day is with just the two of us here. I've gotten most of the stuff from Scotland cleared from where we dumped it in the front room, and the fellow from GE has come in to repair the washing machine.

The day is a warm one and the cats are crashed in the front yard.
Yar can't quite pull it off the way that The Cat with a Thousand Names can, but he tries hard for the camera.

Catch-up day yesterday: the late homework has been finished and turned in and the voter's ballot researched and mailed. Whew! Today the fellow from GE comes to fix the washing machine, so the next focus is getting all the trip stuff off the living room floor and put away.

Having coerced the scion into leaving a blog entry somewhere, I agree to reciprocate.

Today we drove 5 hours back home after leaving him at college. The cats were happy to see us again, not being sure that we won't abandon them again like last week. Yar remains unconvinced that we won't try to slip away again, however, and tried to follow us down the street when we walked down to RS to try to replace a USB cable. I had to lock him into the house to keep him at home.